A Numerical Simulation Model and a Software of Using Ground Temperature to Predict Water Inrush from Heterogeneous Porous Rocks

Abstract

Water inrush in deep mines is a major problem due to the complicated geological conditions of high water pressure, high stress, and high ground temperature. Because the high ground water and high ground stress have great influence on ground temperature distribution, the temperature change can be used to predict water inrush. In order to use ground temperature to predict water inrush from porous rock under thermal–hydraulic–mechanical (THM) coupling geological environments and simplify the process of establishing THM coupling model, a numerical simulation model specialized for using ground temperature to predict water inrush was established and a software specialized for establishing this model was developed by the secondary development of COMSOL Multiphysics. The temperature change law were studied under the impacts of the interaction of the water pressure, working face length, the geothermal gradient, and fault dip angle. Results indicate that the temperature in porous rock increases with increasing geothermal gradient, water pressure and fault dip angle, and decreases with increasing working face length. The ground temperature is higher in the heterogeneous porous media than in the homogeneous. At high water pressure, the temperature change is very large especially at the first few advancing steps of working face, which can provide an obvious temperature change to predict water inrush from porous rock. The software can provide a more convenient method to establish this model and use ground temperature to predict water inrush from porous rock.